Aristotle’s Moral Realism Reconsidered: Phenomenological Ethics by Pavlos Kontos (review)

634 BOOK REVIEWS central place in his concerns, but this little treatise is interesting for several reasons. It begins rather abruptly with a definition of sacrifice as “a proper symbol of a sacrificial attitude.” The definition is shown to be derived from Augustine and to agree with Aquinas, but it is instructive to note Lonergan’s characteristic attention to intentionality and meaning. The definition is applied to show how both the Cross and the Eucharist are not only sacrifices in the proper sense of the word but, indeed, the same sacrifice, though offered in different manners. Other aspects of interest, such as the perfection of the Lord’s sacrifice in comparison to those of the Mosaic dispensation, are also set out. An appendix to the volume includes several pages in which Lonergan repeatedly struggled to make the beginning of an English essay on the same topic, each time with a methodological preamble criticizing the temptation to theological positivism. Positivism would hew to the certain and eschew the speculative, but theology must take up its responsibility to seek a fruitful understanding of the mysteries, even though, by the nature of the case, revealed mysteries are more certain than theological understanding can ever be. The editors may be congratulated for a judicious selection of valuable texts, presented with a low rate of error and good production quality. Translations are notoriously easy to criticize, but this monumental task was accomplished with fidelity and polish, notwithstanding a handful of places where I thought the meaning was lost. The index refers to the translation, which results in some anomalies, for example, conveniens is translated sometimes “fitting” and sometimes “appropriate,” but the index represents only the former. It would be a pity, however, to obscure by such observations an outstanding contribution both to Lonergan studies and to Scholastic theology. JEREMY WILKINS Regis College, University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada Aristotle’s Moral Realism Reconsidered: Phenomenological Ethics. By PAVLOS KONTOS. New York: Routledge, 2011. Pp. viii + 201. $150.00 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-415-89674-0. Pavlos Kontos has written a rich and important book on Aristotle’s moral realism. The book is rich in as much as it brings to the discussion of this topic the author’s extensive and precise knowledge not only of the works of Aristotle (especially the Nicomachean Ethics [EN]) but also of the more recent authors he places in relation to Aristotle, either to commend (as is the case with Kant) or to criticize (as is the case with McDowell, Heidegger, Gadamer, BOOK REVIEWS 635 and, to more limited extent, Arendt). The book is important because it largely succeeds in demonstrating that the major authors it criticizes, despite the fact that they invariably claim to be interpreting Aristotle in relevant respects, pull up short of his dictum that phronēsis (practical wisdom) is “about the ultimate thing, of which there is not scientific knowledge but perception” (EN 6.8.1142a26-27). Kontos acknowledges that his own approach to moral realism is “of a phenomenological inspiration” (93) and maintains that Heidegger, Gadamer, and Arendt are, in the end, not true to that tradition’s fundamental thesis; but he also criticizes the analytic philosopher John McDowell for his own less-than-thoroughgoing moral realism. Kontos is well aware of the passages in Kant that draw the latter’s adherents away from moral realism, but he argues that a proper interpretation of certain arguments might pull Kantians in the other direction. The book consists of eight chapters. The first three are on Aristotle; they are followed by a chapter on Kant, another entitled “Towards a Phenomenological Moral Realism,” and then three chapters on Heidegger, Gadamer, and Arendt, respectively. The first chapter is largely about the nature of prakta (singular, prakton) a term that Kontos wisely chooses not to translate. If phronēsis is about particulars and ultimate things, the latter come within the context of prakta, which the practically wise man (the phronimos) is obliged to know (EN 6.11.1143a32-34). It is common to translate the term as if prakta always referred to things yet to be done, but Kontos shows that neither the term’s use in classical Greek nor Aristotle...